Key points
- Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on November 9 that there will be no relaxation in eviction drives against alleged encroachment.
- He said action is taken against illegal occupation whatever the religion, and that Hindus have also been evicted.
- The latest drives covered about 700 families in Dhubri (notices issued) and 152 families in Hojai's Jamuna-Moudanga forest.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday, November 9, that his government’s eviction drives will not be relaxed, and rejected the charge that they single out one community. “Not only minorities, but Hindus have also been evicted,” Sarma said, at Lahowal in Dibrugarh district.
He described the exercise as action against illegal occupation, whoever the occupier is. Both Hindu and Muslim residents have faced action, he said, and the aim is to reclaim government and protected forest land. The state, he said, cannot let such land stay under unauthorised occupation, and the campaign protects Assam’s land and indigenous interests.
What the drives have covered
The remarks follow a string of operations across the state in the past six weeks. On October 20, Sarma announced that more than 638 hectares had been cleared in Golaghat, Hojai and Nagaon districts, with about 1,000 families removed from the Lutumari, Borpani and Jamuna-Moudanga reserved forests. Our report from that day has the details.
In October a renewed drive in Hojai’s Jamuna-Moudanga Reserved Forest targeted 152 families, seeking to reclaim about 525 bighas. Reports say an earlier operation in the same forest, in January, evicted 1,098 families and reclaimed about 700 hectares.
On November 1, officials moved in Dhubri district, in the Alamganj area of Gauripur circle. About 650 bighas, roughly 215 acres, were targeted. Notices went to about 700 families occupying nearly 800 bighas, and about 150 bighas were left out after residents approached the court.
Land for the landless, and a warning
In separate remarks on the same day, Sarma said genuinely landless people could apply for land under the state’s Basundhara scheme, and that people should look for land in their own areas rather than move to another district and encroach. A person from one district who settles on land in a distant one, he said, would provoke a reaction from local people.
Bridges and roads on the same day
Sarma also spoke of infrastructure. He said a proposed bridge at Lahorighat would need about ₹4,000 crore, and listed bridges already under way at Dhubri-Phulbari, Palasbari-Sualkuchi and Majuli-Jorhat. His next target, he said, is a Morigaon-Darrang bridge. He promised a 30-km road in the Lahorighat constituency soon, with another to follow, and told residents to send their demands to Nagaon MP Devasish Sharma, who won the October bypoll.
The political backdrop
Sarma also criticised the Congress on Monday, saying the party is chiefly focused on winning minority votes and has not done enough for development in minority-dominated constituencies. An analysis cited in reports says the Congress won 19 seats in the 2026 Assembly election, 18 of them held by Muslim legislators, while the NDA won 102 of 126 seats and the AIUDF fell to 2.
The BJP also took the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat in the October 6 bypoll, which we reported on October 11. Congress and the AIUDF were allies in the 2021 Assembly election; the Congress ended the alliance before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Criticism and what next
Opposition parties and civil society groups have questioned the human cost of the drives, the arrangements for rehabilitation and the effect on Bengali-speaking Muslim families, and have asked for more transparency on land ownership claims and due process. The government has not published a rehabilitation plan for those removed in October.
No new eviction date has been announced, and no hearing date has been given for the Dhubri residents who went to court.